A neuron-wise subspace correction method for the finite neuron method

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called Neuron-wise Parallel Subspace Correction Method (NPSC) for training ReLU neural networks for numerical solution of partial differential equations (PDEs). Despite of extremely extensive research activities in applying neural networks for numerical PDEs, there is still a serious lack of training algorithms that can be used to obtain approximation with adequate accuracy. Based on recent results on the spectral properties of linear layers and landscape analysis for single neuron problems, we develop a special type of subspace correction method that deals with the linear layer and each neuron in the nonlinear layer separately. An optimal preconditioner that resolves the ill-conditioning of the linear layer is presented, so that the linear layer is trained in a uniform number of iterations with respect to the number of neurons. In each single neuron problem, a good local minimum is found by a superlinearly convergent algorithm, avoiding regions where the loss function is flat. Performance of the proposed method is demonstrated through numerical experiments for function approximation problems and PDEs.